The Rantings of a Bookless Reader

Thanks John Scalzi for your essay  "The 10 SF/F Works that Meant the Most to Me"; my feelings of dread and despair are dissipating! 

In the event that you were unable to unlock the mystery to my gaps on my blog, I have been stuck in the mire of a reading slump (Can you read the horror in those words I just typed? Because I tried to type in a horrific manner to allude to it, and then realized that no one can actually see my facial expressions and then thought, might as well just keep on with one long bracketed clause to over explain my intent because a bookless me equates a time on my hands me, #let'spiddleawaythehours). 

Writers love to go on about "the block" while I am sure it is face rip-off frustrating, I  propose the reader without a book, is even more aggravating and most definitely more annoying, especially to those dear ones living with us bookaholic types. NOTHING TO READ, think on that because obviously I have in fact numerous books to read, even have a library down the street and the entire web at my disposal but for one month and two days, I have not had a book, not a short story, not a hint of a plot that has peaked my interest. It has been so bad I have actually thought about leaving SF and hanging out with my old buddy, the Mystery Novel. Was that a collective gasp? For goodness sake people, I started watching TV with my husband again...(side note, this may have nothing or everything to do with Survivor being back on). 

And so it is with thanks to John (we are in no way on a first name basis but what the hey...)for listing his personal top 10 which in tern has given me a purpose in life again. To be fair, I posted a similarly themed list way back, so avoiding the awkwardness of it all, (way to go John) let me release to you my list of  4 books that I highly recommend but have not a speck of desire to read again, which in no way takes away from how awesome these books really are.  

1. Blindness, Jose Saramago - Sweet blessed scary as shit, wish I could erase scenes from

my brain, Blindness. A masterful piece of literature written originally in Portuguese, with kudos out to not only the author but the translator who so successfully gave this gift of a novel to the English reading world, Blindness is the tale of humanities quick descent into anarchy. A highly contagious, air-borne (no one really knows) infection causes an epidemic of white blindness. Unable to see, unable to find their way home, or at home, unable to care for their personal needs the city falls into the blackness of hell on Earth.  Funny how hell always ends up being created by mankind. If only we could be nice to one another and it is with this little seed that this dark story is brought back into the light.  Most probably the best written and controlled little masterpiece in the past 30 years, Blindness threw me so completely into it's clutches that I seem to be haunted by it to this day. I don't need to revisit it, I am still gripped by Saramago's brilliance.


2. Lilith's Brood, Octavia Butler- Anyone with a penchant for SF must read Octavia or they are simply not SF readers. The master of the post-apocalyptic, American dream she is able to weave up such a despairing picture of America while still holding true to it's core belief in freedom and self preservation that a reader is exhausted at the end. Best known for her Parable series (depressing as shit but amazing all at the same time), it is her alien series, Lilith's Brood that truly blew me away. To this date, I have yet to pick up a book that so completely allows me to explore and love an alien race. And when you truly fall for an alien as I did hers, what is left for me to explore? As with Blindness, Lilith's Brood took a hold of me resulting in me not needing to dive back in because I am still caught in its prose.

3. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card - Shocking is a mild adjective considering the extensive hype that continues to swirl around this novel. Considered by many the best SF book ever written, which I find a bit of a stretch, and would  more accurately describe Ender's Game as the most successful SF book that is so very SF but so very digestible to the general public. Just in case you have been trekking along the Appalachian Trail, they are making a movie of it. Glee...not really, I have a general distrust of any movie director believing they can do justice to a dearly loved book.  Don't misjudge me, I dearly love this book.  I tore through it's pages like the Tasmanian Devil has want to do in the Bugs Bunny Cartoons. It is exciting, it is thrilling, it is thought-provoking but the best, ever written not so much. What we have here is the perfect plot. Most likely because of its plot strength, once having arrived at the denouement  there was nothing left for me to re-investigate. 

4. Doomsday, Connie Willis - As a huge fan of Connie's it pains me to admit that her Hugo Award winner Doomsday is not one that I return to. Unlike Black Out/ All Clear that continues to knock my socks off even after my third read through, Doomsday sits quietly on my bookshelf. When it comes to historical fiction/alternative universe plots and house buying, it is all about location, location, location. There is history that grabs me more than others and the fourteen century,  Black Plague days of merry-old England, go figure, is not high on my 'to visit' list. That being said, smash me down into the muck of WWI or the bombings of WWII and I am all yours baby, all yours. I have no idea what that reveals about me and frankly not keen to find out. All said, Doomsday is a stellar novel, showcasing Willis's time traveling historians who through the means of amazing tech go back in time to discover the world as it truly (?!) was. 

The Land of Meh: Rethinking the Skolian Saga, Catherine Asaro

Follow-up to Primary Inversion

With the leaves on the verge of turning, the squirrels on a full-scale deployment to bury as many nuts as possible and me keening over the colour "grey", I have slipped into the land of meh.  You know that land, the one at which everything is fine but fine never is fine enough. Over the past months, my gleeful boasting of discovering new authors, with long catalogues of works to sift through have drastically, and depressingly fallen apart. It feels as if I was captured in a magic reading bubble that once having read, blogged, and subsequently proclaimed amazing, popped as soon as I reached out for the book two or three or book four. As with songs, there seems to be a trend for one hit wonders in the SF world which in turn leads to massive sales and acclaim for a series that in truth should be re-evaluated and proclaimed, meh.

It is best to be truthful from the get go, the Skolian Saga is falling to pieces around me. I know, I know this is the same universe that brought Primary Inversion which I still stand behind as a must read. But as the more books I put on hold through the library, and then eventually sign-out, take home, read, and return I am left with the desire to read more of them hoping to uncover that what so impressed me with the first read from Asaro's works. Unsure at who is at fault, the author or myself, I spent the last two months plowing through the saga, feeling rather bored and rather annoyed. So what is the problem, or is there a problem at all. Maybe it is fall, or maybe it is me or maybe the world is not perfect and not all writers are Herbert. 

what's with the cheese-ball cover?

All the elements that make Primary Inversion such an enjoyment becomes trite after book 3. Asaro's story-telling is a redundancy of romantic ideals, sexual exploitation and fairy tale plot twists that worked only the first time. There are parts to the Skolian Saga that deserve acclaim:  the Juggernauts, the conception of inversion,  the archaic quality to the Ruby Dynasty. However world-building is complex and what I am discovering is some authors who pour their creativity into this type of SF are writing beyond their capabilities. 


Asaro's strength lies within the world of science. She has that wonderful knack and mind to express laws, theories and hypotheses to support her ideas. Rather than taking on the universe the books would be better if Asaro honed in on smaller scenarios, less grand scale visions which subsequently would result in a more intimate and true expression of the world she is trying to develop. The Skolian Saga becomes less of a space operatic adventure and more a tale of disconnected ruling families, and wealth that feel less SF and more romantic in genre.

The Man Who Sold the World: A Review of the Culture Series, Iain M. Banks

As promised, my review of the Culture is at hand, unfortunately the speed at which my thoughts are progressing are as slow as molasses, actually molasses just lapped them and a sloth is about to break out in front. The immensity of the Culture series, combined with the creative genius that is Iain Banks has left me at a loss. I can't even claim that I am muddled over with sentences, as the only thing bouncing around my synaptic nerves is a large, neon yellow WOW. Literary eloquence and perfection is not grounded upon the word wow, thus I sit listening to Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World", shaking things up every 10 minutes by switching to Nirvanna's cover in the dire hope that adjectives, adverbs and brilliance channels down onto me.  

Nothing yet, I suspect heavenly intervention may not transpire today. I am totally going to write to Bowie (he is god, right?) and express my dissatisfaction with his lack of intervention. And with one word, I will plug along, an eternity of books have been published with less, how bad can I mess this up?  

Abhorring research, hence my lack of attaining a doctorate, I jumped into the first two books having no sense to what I would be getting into. Based completely on guilt, my initial interest quickly blossomed to astonishment at the scope of Banks vision and then back to guilt because it became obvious my intentions to be a great reader of SF had failed miserably since it was only now, after Banks passing that I came to appreciate him.  I realize I am gushing but it is a rarity to find a book that reminds you of what you are incapable of as a writer. Gushing, good Bowie-lord, I seem to have slip into Dune level freak-out worship.  


But is Dune level accolades of merit really worthy, especially since I have only read the first two in the full catalog of 10 (TEN)?  Yes, yes it is. What kind of blog would this be if I kept my opinions to myself, waiting to deem a read awesome until the research was finished? An honest review, true, but boring I tell you, boring and frankly an impossibility for me as I really do live by the old adage "cart before the horse", finding it effective as long as I keep my cart moving. I know, half of the time I too, have no idea what I am going on about.   

Let us step back slightly and look into what the Culture is or more that what it is not.  It is not for the faint of heart, let's give "this Science Fiction thing" a try, kind of series. This is a full in your face, love it or hate it Science Fiction, world-building, space operatic, centuries of history and story- telling series. Banks presents the universe in which the Culture presides through individual arcs that jump by hundreds of years in the Culture's history which together creates a panorama of the universe.  As a reader, you are completely engaged in each book for what it is, a stand-alone story that appears to depict an angle that you, as the reader thinks is the source to defining the norms to this universe.  In fact, as you progress past Consider Phlebas, the story of war through the eyes of one man, into The Player of Games, your perceptions have been put on its head, and you have to start over,  gathering new pieces to the quickly expanding and expansive story that is the Culture.  

These are brilliant, hard-core SF, encapsulating all that this genre can offer and enters into the canon of SF that should be categorized literature.  Yes, yes I did go that far.